Events

About Us

Blog

Gallery

Members

Public urination, jerk chicken and whistles.

Those of you who know me know that I love to party. And after a week of hardcore dancing (about 27 hours) I was ready to take my healthy head off and put my hedonistic one back on. Neon Fuel London 2012 finished on Sunday at 1pm and after refueling with some tasty food from the Salusbury, I was dressed and ready for the Notting Hill carnival.

First port of call, Good Times. As always, it was heaving. Maybe it’s because I was late heading into the carnival but everyone seemed more hammered than usual. And I mean properly hammered! For instance, walking along the Harrow Road to get to the action I saw a pretty normal looking bloke struggling to walk – he then collapsed on the street and took what seemed like an eternity to get up, only to stagger and fall again. Initially quite amusing but then it was clear this dude needed a helping hand. Thankfully, someone else, who was much nearer to him than me, helped him out. Let’s face it, we’re Londoners, we don’t like to get involved, particularly with a drunken stranger. Anyway, I needed to get to the carnival!

I’m not going to harp on about carnival. It is what it is – colourful, sound systems, blah, blah, blah. But I will talk about 3 things; public urination, jerk chicken and whistles!

Public Urination

So I finally got to Good Times. In itself an over-hyped and disappointing experience exacerbated by discomfort. You can not move (let alone dance) for people and you can barely hear the sound system. My friend, Nods, always says that there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes. The same has to be said for carnival/festivals. If you have the right clobber you can cope with whatever it throws at you. Flips flops, silk, jumpsuits, white and too much stuff to carry means your experience of carnival can be slightly annoying. No, very annoying! I had flip flops, silk and too much to carry. So aside from dodging broken glass on the floor, which was everywhere, I had to avoid the pools of urine in my flip flops and be careful not to drop anything in the massive toilet that was Good Times. It was bloody disgusting, smelly and just plain antisocial. Maybe I was too sober, but in all my years of carnival, it has never smelt so bad. I love the concept of Good Times and all the tunes you expect to hear. And once Mr J played The Jackson Five, Can you Feel It, my Good Times run had come to an end as I was satisfied I had heard a tune I loved. So I left! As I said, I think a lot of it has to do with sobriety, Something I rectified at the more civilised Waterway pub in Little Venice. Admittedly taking a detour past my flat to wash my feet and throw my flip flops out.

Jerk Chicken

I look forward to this every year. Tasty. But again, better when you are a little tipsy!

Whistles

Annoying. Stop it

However…

Final note about carnival. I had a great time! So I don’t want my little rant about 3 things cloud your judgement. I partied until the birds started singing so it’s safe to say I got over all my gripes thanks to Mr Pinot, Mr Grigio and some other friends! You all know I love the Nextmen. Well, I love them even more after carnival. Brad Baloo (slightly larger half of the duo – his words) was playing at The Metropolitan and was definitely responsible for making this a fun weekend . It was sweaty. It was happy. It was funky. It was raw. It was fandabbydozey!